


To The Tower Came

by Nope



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who (2005), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Heroes (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-17
Updated: 2010-03-17
Packaged: 2018-11-05 13:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11014500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: When a rip in space-time causes alternate Earths to collide into a single patch-work world, Mickey Smith and Rose Weasley are left to defend the survivors from the horrors escaping through the cracks. A chance encounter with Micah Sanders sets them on a path that could save the universe -- but there's an ancient evil lying between them and their goal and a dangerous secret at the heart of the world.





	1. Chapter 1

It was nine o'clock and the dogs were howling.

The dogs outside the van, at least, and Mickey sighed as he scratched Jake behind the ears. "Some guard dog you are, eh? Not even a nose-laser."

Jake whined a little, tail giving a half-hearted wag before going back to drooping. In the dusty red glare of some last surviving street-lamp, his usually gold fur looked sickly orange.

"You and me both, mate," Mickey muttered.

Howls rose and fell around them, echoing away off empty flats and broken homes. Dark shapes slunk warily across distant alleyways. Something burbled. Mickey unconsciously clutched his stunner tighter, hoping the noise was just yet another broken water main or gushing sewer. Jake whined again when the scratching stopped.

"We'll do another swing around," Mickey decided. "Like a patrol, yeah?" He dropped the stunner into the door holster, and turned the key in the ignition, coaxing the cold engine back into life. "Mickey Smith: defender of garbage."

Jake huffed. Mickey shoved him off his legs and the dog slid down, clambering into the passenger seat and looking up at him reproachfully.

"When you learn to drive, you can push me off," Mickey promised him, shoving the van into gear over its grinding protests.

They pulled away from the curb, van grudgingly picking up speed. Even with Mickey's constant tinkering with the suspension, it was a bumpy ride. Pale weeds pushed their way towards the stars through the innumerable cracks and potholes in the tarmac. Mickey muttered curses, trying to keep his eyes resolutely on the road but unable to resist flicking glances to the sides or snatching glimpses of the sky.

Clear nights were the worst. Above him, twisted and splintered constellations slid slowly across an inky, mottled sky. Unnatural angles drew the eye to those curious blank places: not the dark of the void, but genuine nothingness; cracks in the sky that the brain refused to process.

Mickey dragged his gaze back to the road. For the space of three breaths it became cobbles under his wheels. Gold domed buildings squeezed into view between concrete council flats and redbrick terraces.

"In Russia, Moscow lives in you," Mickey muttered, and then pulled a face, glad there was no-one to hear him. Almost no-one. "Don't go tell people I said that, Jake."

Jake's tail wagged once at his name.

"Last of the great conversationalists," Mickey said, reaching over to pet the dog. "I'm starting to get why the Doctor loves having his companions."

The howls outside had faded swiftly at the engine noise and now that was all Mickey could hear: the engine and its echoes, rolling away into nothingness. He took a turn and then another, driving vaguely westward. The compass on the dash kept swinging south for a few seconds and then back again. The streets were empty, broken glass and abandoned cars swept to one side. Engine noise rattled around in their husks before returning to chase the van. Mickey drove.

*

_"Where are we going?" Jake asked, leaning over the seat._

_"Driving?" Mickey offered._

_Jake chuckled. "It'll be morning soon."_

_Mickey looked out the window, but all he could see were shadows, spiralling around and around, away into infinity. "What do you see?"_

_"My dead boyfriend's younger, dorkier twin brother," Jake said, grinning in the mirror. Mickey rolled his eyes. "Aw, don't be like that, man."_

_"I am like that," Mickey complained. Lips nuzzled against his neck. "Stop that."_

_Arms draped around his shoulders and, right against his ear, Rose said, "I will if you will, lover-boy."_

_Startled, Mickey took his hands off the wheel. He felt the bed settle behind him as Rose moved._

_"You always had a thing for blonds," she said. "That Tricia--"_

_"That's not fair." Mickey tried to twist around to see her, but she was somehow behind him again, bounding across the room to reach for the curtains. "Don't--"_

_She pulled them wide. He threw his hands up to block out the sudden light that blazed around her, through her. She was smiling, maybe; a sad, old, young sort of thing. Mickey scrambled backwards onto the bed. Someone was singing in his ears, but he couldn't make out the worlds. Words. He couldn't make out the words._

_"Can't you see me?" Rose asked, but her voice was all wrong. "Please. Can't you help me?"_

_"You're not even here," Mickey insisted. "You-- Jake's dead. And Rose was lost -- left, in some other dimension."_

_"Everything shattered," Rose said. "It all folded together and turned inside out."_

_She said something else, but it was drowned out by a scream. They both looked around. There was a mirror and, for a moment, Mickey caught a glimpse of Martha looking up at him, her eyes just beginning to widen in fear. The scream came again and the mirror broke, exploded, and the wall too, and the bed, and the window and the light and Rose and he was falling, everything was falling, and he had time to think "Canary Wharf, it's the view from the" before_

*

Mickey jerked awake, panting. His breath steamed in the air, fogging the windscreen. He fumbled for the ignition, intent on getting the heat back on. It was still dark out, but a different, deeper dark that said morning was maybe a few hours off. He didn't remember falling asleep. Luckily, he seemed to have parked first. Some of the dark was from the overhang the van was now parked under, concrete at his sides and overhead but exits front and rear. Hidden enough from casual viewing. It didn't pay to get boxed in. He'd learned that one the hard way. Every defensive position was also a potential cage.

Just as his hand found the keys, he noticed Jake was standing up on his hind-legs, paws pressed against the window. Mickey looked out in time to see a small, dark shape drop into view. It landed heavily, sliding in the gravel. Mickey ducked back as it looked his way, big orange lenses like insect eyes under a mass of dark curls. In defiance of good stealth, Jake promptly barked and Mickey cursed. 

The shape hesitated, then took off again -- not, Mickey quickly realised, because of the dog. There was a scream, high and wild, and a heavy pounding on the concrete above him. Jake showed his teeth, growling as bodies started dropping into view. They hit the ground wetly, without care, and scrambled brokenly in the rubble, twitching and shuddering until they could get their limbs in place to push themselves up.

Emaciated arms and legs hung at awkward, impossible angles. Heads lolled on broken necks. A low, hungry keening came from those closest as they swayed first this way then that. Mickey carefully pulled Jake back, working his stunner from its holster as quietly as possibly. They didn't seem interested in him, not even when their pale, broken faces swung his way to stare at him with dead, black-in-black eyes.

Another long moment, and the scream went up again, triumphant. Turning on the spot, they lurched away with the determination, if none of the cold, metal grace, of a fleet of Cybermen. Whatever the first thing had been, they were on its trail.

Plague-dogs, Mickey thought, a sick feeling curdling in his stomach.

It wasn't his problem. The only thing you could do with the Infected was stay the hell out of their way and hope the persistent bastards stayed out of yours. Whatever they were hunting, it wasn't his problem. It   
_wasn't_.

He drummed his fingers on the wheel and then, cursing himself under his breath, turned the key.

*

Getting ahead of the flock wasn't hard in the van; getting back in front of them proved more difficult. Fallen rubble and displaced buildings filled the side-streets, gaps jammed with brick mountains and stacked trailer-park style mobile homes.

"One Hell of a tornado," Mickey muttered, ducking and swinging his head from side to side to try and catch glimpses of the runner.

In the same moment he saw that mess of curls drop between the criss-crossed banners of an abandoned Tesco, he also saw a sudden park bursting impossibly up where the side-half of the store should have been and yanked hard at the wheel. Jake yelped, falling off the seat; Mickey grunted out an approximation of an apology as the van smashed through the rusted metal-gates. The wheels whined under him, the van slipping precariously before they got a grip in the wet grass. Mud churned up behind them as they lurched across the green and smashed through the far gates, bursting out into the road beyond even as Mickey slammed the headlight beams up to full.

The runner was caught dead centre in the light. It jerked back, ripping at its eyes -- his, Mickey realised, and not eyes, but goggles, on a black boy of maybe thirteen. The boy was wearing a heavy backpack and, even as Mickey gaped, he reached back and pulled two sci-fi movie-prop looking guns from its side-holsters. One came up towards him, and Mickey swore, rolling sideways and jerking his own stunner out, but the triumphant screams of the Infected drew the boy's attention.

A brief mechanical whirring gave way to a loud electric roar as lightning blazed from the guns. It struck the ground before the oncoming Infected, sending molten rock flying. They slowed and the boy started backing away, guns still blazing, clearly aiming to go around the side of the van furthest from Mickey. The retreat might even have worked if there hadn't been a sudden bang and smoke from the backpack. Both guns died.

Mickey reacted without thinking, kicking the passenger open, yelling "Get in!"

The boy ignored him, fiddling frantically with his back-pack. Jake bounded over Mickey and out of the door, skidding to a halt just past the boy and dropping down, growling viciously. The Infected milled back and forth, slowly edging forth, backing up a little each time Jake barked, but still coming.

Mickey raised his stunner and fired, sending shot after shot whistling over the boy's head, into the crowd. "Get in the damn van, kid! Jake! Come by!"

He had time to think the boy was going to run for it, but then the boy was scrambling up into the passenger seat after the dog, dragging the door shut behind him, both of them crashing into the dash as Mickey stamped on the accelerator. There was smoke, then grip, and they peeled away, wheels screaming accompaniment to the enraged howls of the Infected.

*

"You can let me out here," the boy said less than a mile later.

"Don't be stupid," Mickey snapped. "The Infected will follow you for miles. They're too stupid to give up that easily."

"I can handle myself." He had an accent, both like and unlike Captain Jack's. Some kind of American at least. It wasn't that surprising with the world gone patchwork.

"You blew the power-pack for your Tesla coils," Mickey pointed out. The boy stared at him. "What? I know stuff."

"Right," the boy said. He didn't quite roll his eyes, but Mickey could hear it in his tone. "I can fi--" His breath caught in the middle of the word as he shifted position, and he finished the sentence through gritted teeth. "Fix it myself."

"Are you hurt?" Mickey asked.

"I'm not infected," the boy snapped, and then, quickly, "or maybe I am. You should let me go before I pass it on."

"If you were infected, I'd be doing you a favour shooting you," Mickey said and cursed when the boy's eyes went wide and he scrabbled for the door handle. The boy got a lap full of Jake for his troubles, effectively pinning him to his seat. "Look, this is a rescue, not a kidnap, okay? I've got medicines and bandages in the back." 

He did. Martha had seen to that, before-- well. Before.

Mickey added, "You can pick them out yourself if you're that paranoid."

The boy watched him suspiciously, absently pushing the dog away when Jake licked at his face. "What do you want for them?"

"Nothing." There was no reply. Mickey glanced over to find he was being glared at. "Jesus, kid. I'm not a perv or anything."

"You'd say that even if you were," the boy pointed out, but he seemed to relax a little, fingers carding through Jake's spiky golden coat.

"Jake," said Mickey. "His name is Jake. And I'm Mickey, Mickey Smith."

"Smith," repeated the boy.

"Oi! I am." There was only silence. "You got a name, then?" Still silence. "Trade then. Your name for the medicine, and some food, too. And I'll drop you off once we've put some serious distance between us and the crazy virus driven people, right?"

The boy petted a tail-wagging Jake for a long minute and then finally nodded.

"Micah," he said. "I'm Micah Sanders."

"Pleased to meet you," Mickey huffed, turning his eyes back to the road.

He couldn't help grinning when there came a soft chuckle from his new companion.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Why won't you save me?" D.L. asked._

_"It's too late," Micah said, resolutely not looking up from his computer. Vegas wobbled outside the window, all shiny lights and heat haze. Casinos and deserts, through the wastes of suburbia and right on to the horizon._

_Godsend, typed his fingers._

_The bed dipped as D.L. sat down beside him. "We could have been heroes."_

_"That's what I said," Micah pointed out. "You didn't want to, remember? Not my way."_

_He could see his dad smile out of the corner of his eye._

_"Gonna start a Rebel-ution?"_

_"Stop misquoting old songs at me," Micah snapped, finally looking up. "You think I don't know what this is?"_

_"What is it, baby?" Niki asked._

_"I know I'm dreaming."_

_"Okay," Niki said, smiling a little, humouring him._

_"Mom," Micah whined before he could stop himself. He shook his head, curls bouncing._

_"Look at you," Niki said wistfully. "My little man. All grown up."_

_"Whose fault is that?" Micah asked, bitterly. He looked away, ashamed. There were comics on the table. They slid under his hands, catching on each other and falling down to the carpet like water. Silver Surfer. Ninth Wonders. The covers blurred and he closed his eyes. "I miss you. I miss you guys so much."_

_He felt hands on his shoulders, a head leaned against his. He didn't lean back. It just made everything harder. When she came forward for a hug, he looked past her. The sky was blue outside the window and far, far below them, New York stretched dizzyingly. Something red-orange corkscrewed up through Kirby Plaza._

_"There's still time," Niki said in his ear._

_"Time for what?" Micah asked, pushing away from her and crossing to the window, pressing his hands flat against the cold glass._

_"Time enough for life to unfold." Her voice was quiet, maybe far away._

_"Is the lyrics thing a theme?"_

_There was no reply. He hadn't really expected one. There was a vibration in the glass, in the whole building._

_"Singing," Micah said to himself. "It's just like singing." One hand still on the glass, he looked back. He could barely see his mother, just gold in the shadow and the light. "Who are you, really? Niki? Jessica? Candice? Sylar, is that you in there?"_

_He couldn't see her at all now. The window grew hot under his fingers; he jerked his hand away, spinning around in time to see flames wash across the glass like the whole sky was on fire. New York came apart in a rush of force and light that smashed through the room around him and as it wrenched him from his feet, picked him up and ripped him open_

*

Micah came awake, thrashing wildly. There was a clang as his hand hit metal; he froze instantly, holding his breath until all sound had faded and he was sure nothing was stirring. Carefully, he opened his eyes. He was still in the van, alone, pressed up against the door. His backpack was lying untouched in the foot-well. He was still dressed. Someone -- Mickey -- had draped a blanket over him, but that was it. His shoulder and legs ached; his hands, grazed raw by a fall in the gravel, stung, but not too badly. The spray from the first-aid kit had worked. All in all, he'd had much worse starts to the day.

He straightened up and there was an immediate happy bark from outside. Mickey was out there, tending to a pot over a small, somehow smokeless fire. Jake wagged his tail wildly, almost threatening to set himself on fire until Mickey pushed him to the side, looking up at the same time.

"There's breakfast if you want it," he called when he noticed Micah.

Micah's stomach answered before he could form a 'no', so he nodded instead. Slinging his backpack over his good shoulder, he clambered stiffly down from the van. Catching sight of himself in the wing-mirror, he scrubbed angrily at his face with his sleeve. His eyes were still red-rimmed, but Mickey said nothing when Micah came and sat opposite him, just lifted the lid from the pot.

The sudden smell of sausages hit like a punch. Micah half thought he'd drown in his own saliva. "You have real meat?"

"Whole souped-up freezer full," Mickey said, grinning at him.

Micah arranged his pack between his knees, absently playing with the lock. "I don't have anything to trade."

"On the house," Mickey insisted, holding a plate out. There were eggs too. Micah hesitated, and Mickey huffed. "People do sometimes do things just because they're right, you know."

"I know," Micah said, hoping it sounded like an apology, and he took the plate.

"'course," Mickey added, settling back, "you find me some HP sauce, I'll be your servant for life."

Micah managed a smile, carefully settling his plate down. He tugged at his pack, meaning to take the guns apart while he was eating, but the burnout had buckled the inner casing and it caught. Biting back a curse when it rubbed at his injured hands, he yanked hard; the case tore not just free but the pack too, sending his belongings scattering.

Mickey put out a foot to stop a skidding frame, tilting his head to read the inscription below the mounted gold medal.

"Don't touch that," Micah snapped, almost stumbling into the fire in his haste to get it back.

Mickey just nodded, went back to eating.

Micah retreated back to his side of the fire, pulling his things into a small pile. He started on his own sausages, forcing himself to eat slowly. Eventually he said, not looking up, "It was my dad's."

"Must have been a real hero."

"He was."

They ate in silence after that. Micah accepted seconds, though he fed half to Jake who had been begging quietly for them throughout. While Mickey tidied up, Micah stuck his pack back together with electrical tape; it would do until he could find another. The guns were in far worse condition.

"You build those yourself?" Mickey asked, watching him take the power supply apart. Micah nodded. "Nice work. Think you can fix them?"

"I'll find an electronics store or something," Micah said. He could feel Mickey watching him, and looked up. "What?"

"You don't mind riding with me a little while," Mickey said, grinning, "I reckon I can do you one better."

_*_

"See, there were these people, right? Like a real-life X-Files, called themselves Torchwood, been around since old Queen Victoria -- you know her, right?" Mickey asked.

Micah nodded, wishing Mickey'd pay more attention to his driving than the impromptu lecture.

"Anyway, whenever weird sh-- uh, stuff would happen, they'd barge in, shoot the monsters, and steal all their stuff. And then some bright spark had the idea that maybe keeping all their stolen alien tech in one place might be a slight problem, so they decided to keep it in lots of places. Because that wasn't guaranteed to bite them on the arse at all."

"Alien," Micah repeated.

"What, you're gonna be all Scully at me?" Mickey asked. "I know from aliens, let me tell you. Anyway, you built directed energy weapons out of spare parts."

Micah couldn't see any way to argue with that, since it was true. And it wasn't like he'd seen lots of weird things himself. Aliens, though. "People always told me I should read less comics."

"Nonsense. You can learn lots from comics. Except that tying a towel to your neck won't actually help you fly."

"I liked Marvel better." Off Mickey's questioning glance, Micah explained, "Spider-man, the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer. No capes."

"Spider-man's cool," Mickey admitted grudgingly and smiled when Micah grinned at him.

"Where's the cache?"

"It should be right down this--" Mickey started, swore, and stomped on the brakes.

Ahead of them, the road split in a junction, dividing around a statue and rejoining in front of a dark red building with Mornincton Crescent Station bannered across the top. There was a blue Underground sign hanging half-off the wall, and big metal shutters had once clearly been in front of the doors, but now they were broken, peeled back.

"Mornincton?"

"Mornington," Mickey corrected. "It's just a weird font."

"Your secret alien cache is under a subway station?"

"Majestic keep theirs under Central Station." Mickey drummed his fingers on the wheel. "If someone's gotten in--"

As if summoned, a pair of long-haired men in brown robes came out. Micah pulled his goggles on, switching the lenses from night-vision to digital zoom. He caught a glimpse of odd, pale skin and too dark eyes before he was pulled down, Mickey ducking after him.

"Infected?" Micah asked in a whisper.

"Something else."

"Aliens?" Micah offered. Mickey glared. "Sorry."

"Can't let them find the cache either way," Mickey said. "But there's no way of telling how many of them there are from up here." He swore again, under his breath.

"Well," said Micah slowly, "it is a subway..."

*

"Yeah," Mickey said, "this was a stupid idea."

"I told you, there's no power to the rails. It's perfectly safe," Micah insisted, keeping his voice low and stepping carefully from tie to tie. "And this is definitely the right track for Mornington. Don't worry; it'll work fine."

"Break into places a lot, do you?"

"You'd be surprised," Micah muttered. Mickey gave him a questioning look. A little louder, Micah said, "I hope Jake will be okay."

"I cracked the windows."

They walked on through the near dark. The tunnels swallowed sound. The air was stale, fetid. _Rats_ , thought Micah, shivering. Maybe they should have brought Jake.

"Part golden retriever?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh." Mickey shrugged. "Dunno. Mongrel mutt."

"You didn't have him before?" There was no need to say before what.

"He followed me around until I gave in and named him. You?"

"Me?"

"Did you have--"

"Oh. No." Micah shook his head. "I mean, I wanted a dog, but mom--" The words wouldn't come out. He shook his head again.

"I knew this woman, Sarah Jane. She had a tin dog -- a robot thing. It talked and everything."

"Seriously?"

Mickey grinned. "You'd've loved that, I reckon. He was -- hang on, it's getting brighter."

It was. There was curve enough to the tunnel that they could edge up a wall towards it, peeking out from the scant cover to see the empty platform.

"Where's the cache?"

"Down here somewhere."

"'Somewhere'?" Micah looked back at him, annoyed. "Tell me you know where this thing is."

"I've seen plans," Mickey said defensively.

"I thought you worked for these people!"

"Shh! I did, sort of, but it's complicated--"

They flattened themselves against the wall as two of robed men came out onto the platform. Without looking around, the two crossed to the far stairs and went up them. Mickey crept around to the edge of the platform so he could peer after. Micah was more interested in the junction box. He dug in his pockets for his tools.

"What are you doing?" Mickey whispered.

"Getting a look around."

Micah got the cover off and examined the wires going through it, finding the data-cable for the CCTV system. Cutting carefully through the plastic, he stripped a section of the wire clean and attached a clip to it. He concentrated on his phone, sliding his thoughts through it into the grid, and politely asked the cameras if they would show him what they saw. Their happy responses flickered across the phone-screen too fast for human eyes and it took a moments cajoling to get them one at a time.

"You're not a robot, are you?" Mickey asked, watching. "I mean, it's totally cool if you are; I'm just asking. Hey, that's it!"

"That's a wall," Micah said dubiously.

"Yeah, no, that's it," Mickey insisted. "You have to tap those bricks, see, where the colour's wrong. Looks untouched."

"It's between the platforms. We're right next to it." Micah frowned at the screens. "Those guys are all over, though. I think they're looking for it. They've really ransacked the security offices. They're not even checking the cameras themselves."

"So we can just sneak in, nab the lot, and hoof it," Mickey said. "Fantastic!"

The guys, goons, mad monks, whatever, they didn't look human. Humanoid, yeah, but their skin was all wrong. Like diseased, but not like the virus -- except Micah wasn't thinking about that, either.

 _Come on, Rebel,_ Micah told himself. _You talked down Sylar._

Without waiting for Mickey, he grabbed the edge of the platform and pulled himself up. The far stairs were empty, the close ones too. An abandoned luggage trolley lay across their bottom. Micah dodged around it and crossed to the connecting tunnel, back pressed against the Mornington Crescent inscribed on the wall. Mickey joined him, taking a quick glance and then nodding. They slipped inside.

It was barely long enough to count as a tunnel, just a few feet. Large enough for a door though. As soon as Mickey tapped the bricks, a whole section slid silently up.

"Cool," Micah whistled.

Mickey grinned at him, punching a number into the revealed keypad and then pushing the door open.

"Jackpot," he said, stepping inside.

It was like a janitor's closet, certainly not much larger, though the shelves weren't stacked with cleaning products but with metal boxes. The ones on the right seemed to be all records. Those on the left were more promising; Micah could hear circuitry humming from inside more than half of them. Probably a dozen all together.

"We'll take these," Mickey said, knocking on them. "The files should have a self-destruct switch."

"I'll get the trolley," Micah said.

"That would save us some time," agreed a voice behind them, and they both swung around to see one of the monks in the doorway.

They didn't look human at all from close up. Never mind the skin, or the improbably black eyes; the shape of the bones were wrong, a little too broad here, a little too slim there, pushing out the robes and making him -- it -- look like a bat pretending to be a man. It grinned, its mouth too full of teeth, and Micah took a step back before he could stop himself. His elbow banged against a box, impossibly loud in the small space; Mickey jerked up, startled. There was an electric crackle. The bat-monk-thing just started to look startled before it fell over backwards.

Mickey seemed just as surprised to find the stunner in his hands as Micah was to see it there.

"Shit," he said succinctly.

"I'll get the trolley," Micah repeated. He took a step forward, hesitated, and then jumped over the downed bat-monk, stumbling into the opposite wall. He edged out to check the way was clear and then ran for the trolley and dragged it back, cursing under his breath at every squeak the wheels made. Mickey had shoved the bat-monk out of the way and was now dragging boxes out.

"Here." Micah started grabbing them, loading the trolley as neatly as he could. Mickey was clearly a lot stronger than he looked -- or Micah really needed to get off the computers and work out -- because he could only move one at time. Time was passing with alarming speed. "Come on, come on!"

"Keep your hair on," Mickey snapped, but he was rushing too, neither of them bothering to be quiet now. Still, the clangs of the boxes couldn't cover the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. "Shit, that'll have to do. Go!"

It took an effort, but Micah got the trolley moving, dragging it towards the platform. Mickey hit something inside the cache with the butt of his gun and came running out as the door slammed shut behind him. An alarm sounded that Micah was pretty sure he was only hearing in his head, not with his ears, and then the whole platform rocked under his feet. Smoke started leaking out of the walls.

"Blimey," Mickey said. "That was bigger than I thought."

"Watch out," Micah called, as more of the bat-monks appeared on the stairs, charging down.

Mickey shot the first with his stunner, and it tumbled backwards, knocking the others. Micah found the service ramp, shoving the trolley down it, only his weight on the back stopping it crashing into the rails. As it was, it only just fit between them, though at least the wheels were large enough not to catch on the gaps between the rails. It was bumpy as all hell, but it moved. He shoved, running behind it, and Mickey caught up with him, which was good, and the bat-monks were right behind, which wasn't at all.

"Too many of them," Mickey swore.

"Wide-beam," Micah said.

"I don't have a--" Mickey started and Micah slapped a hand against the stunner and pushed and something wide and almost blue blasted down the tunnel behind them, crackling from rail to bat-monk to rail, sending them howling into retreat.

"...you gotta tell me how you do that," Mickey said.

"Really," Micah panted, "don't," and Mickey nudged him aside and took over pushing the trolley.

Getting to the next platform proved less effort than getting the trolley up without a convenient ramp and by the time they had, the bat-monks were back. The elevator doors closed in time to keep them out, but they could see the bat-monks going for the stairs. They were in front by the time Mickey and Micah reached the ground floor, but the trolley smashed through them easily enough, and then they were out through the mess of grasping, clawing hands.

Micah rushed ahead, breath burning in his lungs, and slapped his hand against the back of the van. The doors burst open, ramp dropping itself -- and Jake too, who came lunging out, leaping right over Micah and onto the chest of a bat-monk that was somehow right there. Barking and biting, Jake drove it back as Mickey came rushing up. The trolley hit the ramp and kept going, crashing into the front of the van, almost rebounding out until Micah leaped in after it.

Firing his stunner blindly, Mickey dodged around to the front of the van and threw himself in, starting it up.

"Jake!" Micah yelled as they started moving. "Come by!"

The dog dropped away from the bat-monk, gave a triumphant bark and then twisted away bounding towards the rear of the van and the open door. He leaped up and Micah grabbed him, falling backwards, pulling the door closed with them. Something hit it from the other side and then fell away as they accelerated.

"See," said Mickey, panting laughter, "said it was a good idea."

"You did not," Micah complained, but he was grinning too as he clambered his way over and into the front seat.

"Reckon that makes us even," Mickey said. "In fact, I probably owe you, now. You headed anywhere in particular, kid?"

"East," Micah said automatically.

"Need a ride?" Mickey asked.

"Yeah." Micah smiled. "Yeah, I think I might. Thanks."


	3. Chapter 3

Mickey drove, humming idly along to the music. He wasn't sure what it was, exactly, some sixties rock thing, but there was only three hundred and seventeen songs on the iPod Micah had found and they'd heard them all looped so often Mickey had practically memorised them. He glanced over to see Micah still happily ensconced in a box, ignoring Jake who was making increasingly more ludicrous 'pet me dammit' poses. Beneath the boy's hands, strange alien objects whispered and blinked their lights and gave up their secrets like magic.

Like some kind of technopathy Mickey thought, because he'd watched sci-fi shows and, anyway, the Doctor babbled a lot.

They crossed from terraced suburbs into empty countryside that Mickey thought might have been Kent once upon a time. The road turned muddy under the wheels as it twisted around past sudden tall, yellow buildings, draped with dead creepers and surging ivy. Half a giant jade head stared sightlessly at them as Mickey edged his way around a MacDonald's sign that had fallen from somewhere into the dirt. He crossed a railway line that petered out a few hundred yards in both directions and, with rather more trepidation, a rickety old iron bridge that arched over nothing more than snow-sunk heathers.

"It's like Battleworld," Micah said out of nowhere. Mickey gave him a blank look. "It's from a comic," Micah clarified. "Secret Wars -- the original one, with the Beyonder? He took pieces from lots of different planets and smashed them all together to make a new one for all the heroes and villains to fight on."

"Huh." Mickey considered this. "Maybe that's what this is."

"The Beyonder told everybody what he did," Micah pointed out. "No-one's said anything; not that I know of."

"I knew a guy, called himself the Doctor. He said time was full of cracks. Maybe we just got one crack too many," Mickey mused.

Which would make it all partly his fault, of course. And Rose. Mostly Rose, really. Well, okay, and the Cybermen and Torchwood and the Daleks and Davros -- lots of blame to go around. Best not to think about that.

He tried a change of subject. "You were in America when it happened, right?"

"India, actually," Micah said. "I was with my-- With a sort-of friend."

"Not your parents?" Mickey asked and then felt like a heel.

"No." Micah shook his head, eyes fixed on the thing in his hands, turning it over and over. "They were gone before. Everyone was gone before."

"Sorry."

"Yeah," Micah said and then, a long moment later and so quiet Mickey was sure the boy didn't realise he was saying it aloud, "I always get left behind."

Know how you feel, mate, Mickey thought, but he said nothing, concentrating on his driving, twisting with the roads but always heading East.

*

The sun was just dropping out of the rear-view mirrors when they finally broke free of the thick forest and got the first unobstructed view of the lights ahead. They dangled in glittering rows from stall after stall, spreading in all directions like a bejewelled spider-web, casting their light on food and fabrics, clothes and charts, tools and trinkets. Cooking smells sneaked their way in through the cracks, making Jake jump up to the window. Mickey slowed down so he could safely watch Micah, grinning when the boy finally looked up and was instantly transfixed.

"Whoa," Micah breathed. "Is that a castle?!"

It was. A whole mass of towers, grey stones turned orange and purple in the last dregs of sunlight, clustered together on the rise, joined by balustrades, covered-walkways, and smaller, slope-roofed buildings.

"That's where we're going," Mickey said, grinning when Micah's face lit-up.

He took the long route between the stalls to make the most of trip for Micah, though it did mean he had to keep stopping to avoid people trying to barter shit he didn't want for things he didn't have. The medical supplies were, admittedly, something of a fortune in what passed for the current economy, but it felt wrong to use them like that. Martha wouldn't have approved.

Though maybe she would have at that. She'd had a practical streak to her. Mickey wondered if, in some other timeline, they'd ever gotten to know each other better. And if they had, was a piece of it lying out there somewhere, waiting to be stumbled over?

"Look at all the people," Micah whispered, hands and face pressed to his window.

'All' was something of an exaggeration, Mickey thought, remembering the Londons of years before -- in either dimension -- jam packed even on Sundays. Even counting the stall keepers, there was probably only fifty or so people out there. Still, he supposed, it was likely the most people Micah had seen in one spot since it happened.

Which was just as depressing as thinking about Martha. Bloody hell, but the future sucked!

As the van turned up the hill, Micah twisted around in his seat to watch the market for as long as he could. When he finally sat back, it was with a wistful little smile that didn't go away until Mickey had reached the castle's wall.

He was reaching for the horn when there was a pop and the shadows resolved themselves into a familiar, rather harassed looking teenager, who was tying her thick, dark-red curls back with a scrap of ribbon as she came up the van.

"I hope you've brought something good," she said. "McGonagall is having one of her days."

"I can come back--"

"Hugo already said." She waved him to follow her as she headed towards the wall. "You can come on through."

Mickey closed his eyes and did, hearing Micah yelp as the stones rushed up at them, and then gasp as they simply passed right through it.

"Some kind of hologram?" he asked.

"Not exactly." Mickey parked in a corner of the revealed courtyard, turned the engine off and got out, waving Micah out. "It's a glamour. No, really," he added off Micah's skeptical look. "Go on, Rose, tell him."

"A glamour layered on wards, if you really must over-simplify a quite complicated piece of arithmantical construction, but yes. Hello," she added, offering a hand to Micah who, bemused, shook it awkwardly. "I'm Rose Weasley. Welcome to Hogwarts."

Micah gaped at her, then at the castle, and then at her again. Mickey cracked up, earning Micah's glare.

Rose sighed. "Well, honestly."

*

"That's the owlrey up there," Rose said, pointing. "It's rather empty these days, I'm afraid."

"You really have owls," Micah asked.

"Not personally, but yes, the school does."

"And they send post and everything?" Rose nodded. Micah beamed. "Awesome!"

Mickey, wandering along behind them with Jake, chuckled. Rose rolled her eyes at him. Micah ignored them both.

"Look! The portraits actually move!"

"Not another Muggle," huffed a hook-nosed man, and dodged out of his frame.

Micah laughed, half astounded, half incredulous. "Did you hear that? He called me a Muggle!"

"We prefer to use 'non-magical'," Rose said, a little stuffily. "Now, down here--"

"Hang on," said Micah, coming to an abrupt halt. "If--"

"Yes," Rose sighed. "I am a witch."

She pulled her wand out and flicked it casually. Red and gold streamers burst out of nowhere, spiralling prettily until they came apart in a rain of glittering sparks. Jake jumped, barking once and then whining.

"Sorry," Rose said, bending down to pat him.

"Yeah, okay, that was cool," Micah said, "but I was going to ask why I could see the castle? Shouldn't it have anti-Muggle spells or something?"

"McGonagall made us take them down," Rose said. "The rules had quite obviously changed and she said we needed to adapt to them."

"Oh."

"Hugo was asking after you," Rose added to Mickey.

Mickey sighed. "How is he?"

"Worse," Rose said tightly.

"Yeah, okay. I'll go up," Mickey promised. "Can you show Micah around for a bit or something? Is that okay with you, Micah?"

Micah blinked at him. "What? Uh, yeah?"

"Okay?"

"Yes. No. I don't-- Hogwarts?!" Micah demanded, affronted.

"The way I heard it," Mickey said, "is that in an infinite multiverse, everything that can exist somewhere must exist. Even fictional things."

"I don't know why you're looking smug," Rose said waspishly. "You're from a telly show my dad used to watch."

"That's the Doctor's fault," Mickey complained.

"You're from a television show?" Micah asked, sounding almost amused.

"I'm sure there are universes where you're fictional too," Mickey said. "I find it best not to think about it."

"Personally, I think the implications are really quite outstanding," Rose said. "I'm sure if we could properly study the transfer of information between quantum strata, we could learn a great deal about the nature of the current mix-up."

"Is your mom really Hermione Granger?" Micah asked.

Rose sighed. "Yes. Yes, she is."

"I'm going to see Hugo," Mickey said.

Rose nodded, distracted as Micah asked her another question, and the two started off again, Jake padding alongside.

"Bye then," Mickey muttered, and headed the other way.

*

The castle structure shifted around more than the TARDIS had. It didn't help that the portraits liked to try and give helpful directions that inevitably turned out not to be, that the stairs kept swinging around every time he was half-way up them, or that he kept half-catching glimpses of almost familiar people in unexpected mirrors. He didn't know how long it took him to find the ladder up to the North Tower but, by the time he was pushing his way up through the circular trap door, the sun had set, the lights had gone out on the stalls, and broken stars wheeled past the window slits.

He closed it behind him as quietly as he could, but even that little noise brought whimpers from the bed in the middle of the room. Despite the massive fire roaring in the grate, or the steam rising from the iron kettle, there was still a chill in the air.

"Hugo?" Mickey asked softly.

He crossed the room carefully, edging around the crystal balls and stepping over dropped cards and discarded cups. Kneeling by the bed, he reached out as gently as he could to touch the shape under the blankets.

"Hugo," he repeated, a little louder.

There was another whimper, the only warning before the bed shook and a thrashing form burst out of the bedclothes, a screaming blur of freckles and scars.

Dodging a wild swing, Mickey threw his arms around the boy, holding the far too bony frame tight. "Hugo! It's okay! Calm down!"

Mewling, Hugo twisted feverishly against Mickey's grip, but he was too weak to get free and eventually he subsided, tears streaming down his face, mumbling "Scorpius" over and over.

"It's me," Mickey said, loosening his hold a little. "It's Mickey, Hugo. Are you with us, mate?"

Hugo's head turned in his direction, although the boy's eyes were focused on something, somewhere else altogether. His lips moved soundlessly for a bit, before finally shaping Mickey's name. It took a couple more tries before it had sound behind it.

"That's me," Mickey agreed. "Okay?"

"Yes," Hugo said, though he almost fell when Mickey let go. Between the two of them, they managed to get Hugo propped up on pillows, though the effort seemed to exhaust the boy.

Martha had once told him about a school-boy and a watch and how Artron fields and time scars lead to increase in psychic abilities. He'd never really understood that, even after seeing that mad Dalek who'd breached the Time War, not until Hugo. Mickey couldn't imagine what it was like, being a Seer as the universe ripped itself opened around you and space and time got all snarled together.

"It's coming back," Hugo said. "Mickey?"

"I'm here," Mickey assured him. "Don't suppose you've seen the Doctor in there anywhere?"

Hugo's head swung back towards him. There was no colour in the boy's eyes, white irises, absent pupils. "We've all been dreaming. You've seen it, haven't you? There's a tower at summers end."

"Yeah?" Mickey prompted. There was no answer. "Rose said you were asking for me."

"I'm sorry," Hugo whispered. "I'm so sorry. But it was necessary, you see. I saw it, the storm at the heart of the son. The virus--"

He jerked up. Mickey caught him before he could go far, carefully pushing him back down. Hugo's eyes found his.

"The virus has a name. The virus--" Hugo frowned, lolling. "But it all gets lost. It all gets -- Mickey?"

"I'm here," Mickey said, taking Hugo's hand and squeezing it.

"Take Rose when you go. That's important. Perfect Rose -- but I get so lost," Hugo said, beginning to cry again. "I get so..." And then in a perfectly calm, normal tone of voice, he asked, "Would you mind making me a cup of tea before you leave, please, Mickey? I don't think I can get up now."

"Sure," said Mickey, letting go of his hand.

He found the cleanest cup he could and the tea, poured in water from the kettle, and brought it back to the bed. Hugo seemed to be dozing, so Mickey left it on the side-table and turned back to the trap-door. Just as he was letting himself down, Hugo called after him.

"Take Rose when you go. Promise me."

"I promise, Hugo," Mickey said placatingly. "You try to get some rest, okay."

"Okay, Mickey." Hugo sighed wearily. "Good bye."

"'Bye," Mickey said and ducked down the ladder, letting the trap fall shut. He breathed a sigh of relief once his feet were on the ground, and then felt terrible for doing so. It wasn't Hugo's fault. Or if it was, no more than it was everybody else's too.

Mickey's stomached growled and, thanking it for something at least approaching normalcy, he went off to find the Great Hall for supper.

*

As it turned out, he only had time for a piece of toast. He'd nodded to McGonagall as he'd entered, but quickly grabbed a spot at the Gryffindor table to avoid having to speak to her quite yet. (She might have looked old and frail, but he knew she could strip paint with her tongue.) Only, as soon as he'd sat down, he'd realised that (a) Rose was right in front of him and (b) Micah and Jake were nowhere to be seen.

"Where's the kid?" he asked.

"I think he's still in his room," Rose said, blinking owlishly at him. "Why?"

"Room?"

"Well, yes. I had a room made up for him, and left him to get cleaned up; we'd spare clothes in his size."

"Right," said Mickey nodding. "Why?"

"Because," Rose started, and then frowned. "Isn't he staying? You're always bringing strays here. I just assumed -- I mean, you told me to look after him."

Mickey felt his stomach drop out. "Show me," he said, rather startled to realise he was standing. "Take me to the room, Rose. Right now!"

"I'm," Rose started, clearly thought better of it, and jumped to her feet. "Come on; there's a hidden staircase behind the painting of Misaligned Jones. It'll take us right there."

Right there in Hogwarts terms, of course, which was still twisty-windy, but it was only a few moments later that Mickey was knocking on the door and calling out, "Micah? Are you awake?"

There was a whining inside and a scratching noise.

"That's Jake," Rose said and Mickey pushed at the door, which swung open to let the dog bound out, barking. Rose dodged past him into the room and then cursed. "He's gone."

'I'm always left behind,' Mickey thought with horror and turned and sprinted for the stairs.

Rose and Jake were at his heels in seconds. "What's going on? Did he run off? Why?"

"Never mind that," Mickey snapped. "I've got to go after him. Where's my van? I can never find anything in this sodding--"

"This way," said Rose. "You can explain it to me on the way." Mickey blinked at her. "If it's my fault he's gone, it's my responsibility to get him back."

"'Take Rose when you go'," Mickey said and sighed, waving off her questioning look. "Prophets, man. Yeah, come on. He can't have gone far."


	4. Chapter 4

Micah was sure Rose hadn't meant it -- what she'd said, yeah, but not that it'd feel like being kicked in the stomach. So Hogwarts was where Mickey dropped off all his strays, was it? Well, good for him. But Micah had had more than enough of being bounced from one sitter to another when his parents were alive and damned if he was going to put up with it now. Best to leave quickly, before too many people knew he was there, knew to look for him. Rebel worked in the shadows, right? Right.

He took a shower first, though; it had been ages since he'd been properly clean.

Jake wandered around the room, sniffing at things while Micah changed into the clothes left for him. He felt a little guilty about taking them, but not enough to actually stop; he'd been wearing his own jeans for a month straight at least. When he sat on the bed to do his boots up, Jake bounded over to put his head on Micah's knee and whine. Micah scratched him automatically behind the ears.

"You'll have to stay here," he said.

Jake just looked at him. When Micah stood, Jake immediately bounded to the door and stopped there, tail wagging hard.

"No, Jake," Micah insisted. "Stay here. Stay."

Jake's tail dropped. Micah opened the door and the dog tried to go out, forcing Micah to catch him and drag him back in.

"Stay, you damn mutt!"

Jake looked at him reproachfully. Micah just shook his head, backing out of the door and yanking it shut before Jake could follow. The dog whined, scratching at the other side.

Micah swallowed hard, leaning against the wood. "Stupid dog."

A portrait was watching him, like some bizarre television-screen spy-camera. Hogwarts? Seriously?

"Your dad could walk through walls and you talk to machines," he told himself and then wished he hadn't. Talking out loud to yourself was never a good sign. Not that he'd had anyone else human to talk to since-- Leaving. He was leaving.

It should have been harder to navigate around the castle but, if he concentrated, he could 'hear' the stuff in the van like a beacon; with only one false start when a corridor had vanished on him, he was quickly back in the courtyard.

The side-doors on the van were too stupid for him to open quickly, but the alarm-system on the back doors was happy to let him in. He grabbed his backpack from the front seat and turned to go, but the boxes from the Torchwood cache caught his eye. Micah hesitated for a moment, before opening one. He'd helped get them out, so it wasn't really stealing, just taking his share. The power-packs would be invaluable, and the omnicom too, if he could work out how to wire it to his laptop properly. He took the life-signs scanner too, in case he could fix it, and the odd blue shell thing whose function he hadn't yet found, but which hummed pleasingly in his hands. The weapons, he left for Mickey.

Micah locked the door behind him. He took one last look and then, resolutely setting his back to the castle, headed away.

*

East again then, but he didn't get far before he had to change his route.

There was enough light from the stars he wasn't looking at and the moon when it showed up in random phase for his goggles to work; through them, he could see a group of the Infected slouching slowly through -- well, Micah wasn't sure what it was, only that human architecture rarely contained such strange angles. They didn't seem to be headed anywhere in particular, but they were good at tracking people like himself and he couldn't risk getting too close. Better the long, slow, roundabout route than to run into a dead end. He knew what the virus could do, what it had done, even before its present mutation.

There wasn't much of a vantage point to check from, but he couldn't linger. The south route seemed the easiest. The trees hid the view of the castle as it slowly retreated behind him. It was still cold under them, though they'd kept the snow off. The weather had been weird since it happened, all roughed up and never quite settling. His breath steamed and Micah pulled his new cloak in tighter, refusing to let himself think that leaving in the morning would have been more sensible.

He hated being cold, though. New York had been cold, even in Linderman's tower.

Walking slow and steady eventually drove all thought from his head but the motion, picking each foot up in turn and putting it back down in as close to a straight line as he could. He barely noticed when the trees suddenly stopped, leaving him on a grassy trail. It went the way he wanted, a slow curve south and east, so he followed it blindly. Wet undergrowth pulled at his feet. His backpack grew heavier with every step.

If he hadn't tripped over the rails, he would never have noticed them. They started out of nowhere, ends twisted and melted. The ties were overgrown, weed deep and broken here, swinging back north a little through a cut in the grass, which Micah took. By the time he'd gone another few hundred yards they'd become clearer, practically a real path, and he found his energy renewed by this, picking up speed.

The tracks promptly vanished half-a-mile later, but a few minutes after that, to Micah's delight, they came back again. There were more gaps after that, but, the further he went, the fewer and smaller they were, and he made good time. Good time to where, he wasn't sure, but good time nonetheless and Micah was happy to take victories where he found them, no matter how small.

*

Time had ceased to have meaning. There was a tune in his head, something familiar but not, that called at him, pulled him on. He hummed it under his breath as he walked. There were no birds to draw his attention, no night-foraging animals. The grass barely moved. He could have been the only person in a wide, empty universe, if it hadn't been for that engine sound that -- wait, what?

Micah lifted his head. It was an engine. He looked around wildly, but there was little cover beyond the dip of the train cut itself. Absent better options, he threw himself down in the grass, biting back a yelp at the cold wetness.

The vehicle got closer, closer -- was right on top of him -- was moving off. He had time to let out a sigh of relief when the noise cut out entirely. It had stopped, and nearby. He heard a door slide, and soft voices, and then a sudden bark. Holding his breath, Micah began edging away, but there was no time, even if there had been somewhere to get to. A blur of gold came barking happily over the edge, skidding and sliding down the slope; Micah found himself on his back with a dog on his chest and a face full of slobber.

"Get off, mutt!"

"Yeah, that never works," Mickey said, grinning down at him. "Wotcher."

Rose appeared at his shoulder, looking apologetic, at least until she raised her wand, forcing Micah to yank his goggles up before the light blinded him. He really had to work on that whole auto-polarising thing.

"Do you mind?"

"Sorry," she said. It sounded genuine, but he couldn't focus on her to see.

Blinking afterimages away, he pushed at Jake again until the dog finally got off enough to let Micah sit up.

"I was fine."

"Don't doubt it," Mickey agreed.

"You didn't have to come after me."

"Yep," Mickey agreed. Micah blinked at him. "Did anyway."

"He wasn't going to leave you at Hogwarts," Rose put in. "I got the wrong idea and went with it. I really am sorry; it's a terrible habit."

"I didn't think he would," Micah lied, suddenly feeling very stupid.

"There's food in the van," Mickey said. "If you're coming. Come by, Jake."

Jake wagged his tail, but looked back at Micah, who nodded and clambered to his feet. "Okay."

"Cool," said Mickey as Micah joined him. "Man, I really should get me some of those night-vision goggle things--"

"It would certainly stop people sneaking up on you," a new voice said, and Rose let out a startled yelp.

In the pulsing yellow wand-light, the grinning bat-monks looked even more deranged than usual. There were at least six of them, eyes glittering dangerously, and they were all between them and the van. Jake stalked forward, growling. Rose lowered her wand.

"You stole from her most magnificence," the bat-monk said, sounding almost sad. "That wasn't very nice, or sensible."

"You seriously followed us the entire way?" Mickey asked. "That's pretty screwed up."

"We are tireless in service of our cause," the bat-monk said.

"Sometimes we get tired," one of the others put in. "But we keep going anyway, for her most perfectly scentedness."

"Right," said Mickey, nodding. "Well, let me just say -- RUN!"

Rose's light went out. Micah yanked his goggles back on in time to see Mickey's fist connect with a bat-monk's face. The thud was impressively solid, as was the way the bat-monk went flying backwards -- but in the next moment, three of them had leaped on Mickey at once. Micah yelled out, running forward and throwing himself at the closest one's back, yanking on his ears. Jake got in on it too, biting a leg and shaking his head back and forth. Between them and Mickey turning out to have some kind of cool kung-fu thing that Micah seriously had to learn, they got him clear. He promptly shoved Micah back.

"Didn't I tell you to run? Don't wait for me!"

Micah was about to say 'Run where?' but he got a better idea, and threw himself under an attacking bat-monk, scrambling for the van and Mickey's stunner. His fingers were actually brushing the door when claws hit his bad shoulder and he yelled out, falling.

Someone else shouted, and something red burned a line over his head, sending the bat-monk flying. Rose was at his side in the same instance, pulling him up, but somehow the bat-monks had gotten back in between them and the van in those few seconds.

Micah risked a glance back, trying to find Mickey, but saw instead that they had been surrounded. Two more of the bat-monks were leaping at them from behind; without thinking, he threw himself at Rose, knocking her out of the way. As the bat-monks crashed into each other, the spell Rose was preparing went off wildly. Micah caught a glimpse of Mickey still fighting before the burst wiped his lenses white. Crackling heat raced towards him and, blindly, he grabbed Rose and pulled, trying to shield her, except the ground went up from under them, and they were both crashing down into the cut.

The rail connected with Micah's head, and everything went red-black.

*

There was something cold and wet and rough. Micah swatted at it half-heartedly, mumbling, "Stop it, Damon."

It came again and he pushed at it, getting a handful of spiky fur for his troubles. That wasn't his cousin. He forced his eyes open, blinking them rapidly until things started coming in to focus. "Jake?"

The dog whined. Micah bolted upright, and then wished he hadn't as the whole world went twisty around him and pain exploded in his skull. Biting off a moan, he forced himself to breathe until he could think again, and then looked around. Rose was lying half-way up the slope, and he ran to her as best he could, dropping to his knees and shaking her shoulders.

"Rose!" he hissed. "Rose!"

She moaned as she stirred and then snapped into wakefulness with a speed Micah would have found more impressive if it hadn't ended up with her wand jabbing him in the face.

"It's okay! It's just me!"

"Mickey?" she asked, puzzled. "I was having the weirdest dream, with Scorpius, and I was on the Astronomy--"

Micah had already left her behind, scrambling back up the slope, yelling "Mickey!"

"Micah," Rose called after him. "They might still be--"

They weren't. As she joined him, Mickey looked around in dismay. The doors of the van were all open, clearly stripped bare.

"No!" Micah yelled. "Damn it."

"They can't have gone far," Rose said comfortingly. "Here, let me--" She touched her wand to his head, muttering, and the pain cleared. "There."

"Thank you," Micah said. He frowned at the wand. "Can you find Mickey with that?"

"I don't know. Magic has been weird since it happened; I'm not sure we could trust it. My simple impediment jinx exploded and--"

"My backpack!" Micah interrupted spinning on the spot. To his delight, it was down in the cut, where he had fallen. He slid down the slope to grab it up, practically ripping it open, and tugging out the life-signs detector, which he waved at Rose. "What about this? Can you fix this?"

"I can do a reparo, but I don't know what it--"

"I can talk you through that," Micah insisted, scrambling back up the slope, Jake bounding around him, barking. "How much gas does the van have?"

"Gas?" asked Rose, confused.

"Gas!" Micah waved his hands in annoyance. "That makes it go! Petrol!"

"Oh! No, it's all magic," she explained. "Mickey could never find enough petrol to run it properly. It'll go for ages yet if--"

"Come on then," Micah said, pulling her towards it. "No time to lose!"

"No time for what?" Rose wailed.

"To find and rescue Mickey, obviously," Micah huffed, clambering up into the seat and patting the other until Jake jumped over him and into it. He threw Rose a blinding grin. "Don't worry; I have a plan!"

"Yeah, I'm going to worry anyway," Rose muttered, but she still got in.


	5. Chapter 5

_"You're old enough to be his dad, you know," Rose said thoughtfully. "I mean, my maths has always been a bit dodgy, and there's alternate universes and differing time rates to consider, like Narnia, right? But I reckon you're old enough to be his dad."_

_Mickey blinked at her. Thick blond waves poured across the pillow and he knew he was dreaming because he definitely didn't think in poetry when he was awake. They were lying in a bed together, but it wasn't his flat, or her mum's. There were circles on the walls, but only out of the corner of his eye. "Who are we talking about?"_

_"Micah," Rose said, huffing, exasperated and amused._

_"Nah." Mickey shook his head. "Having a little brother would be cool, though."_

_"My little brother -- does he still count as a half-brother when his dad is an alternate timeline version of my dad?" Rose waved this off. "Anyway, my little brother sicked-up all over your shoes."_

_"It's cooler when they're older," Mickey insisted. "Before they're old enough to hate you, anyway. Where is this place?"_

_"Don't you know?" Rose's smile was almost sad. She slid from the bed, taking the sheets with her, wrapped around herself like robes or folded wings. There was a window, and a blind she drew back. "Don't you remember?"_

_"I've had this dream before," Mickey said. "I've had it lots of times."_

_"Dreams are important." She leaned into him when he joined her at the window, looking down. Roads and tracks and rails spanned out in every direction from far below, trails of glittering lights stretching to an endlessly shifting horizon. "You think only places were squeezed together?"_

_"Poor Hugo." Mickey sighed._

_"This is Event One," Rose said, but her voice came from all around him. "There is a hole in the world and we have all fallen in to the puzzle box."_

_"If Pinhead shows up, I reserve the right to wet myself," Mickey said. There was no response. Like talking to a wall. "Who are you really?"_

_"I had no shape and every shape until I was formed, imprinted, made sentient -- and then hidden, so far and so fast. Still, I could see. The whole of time and space-- I am so vast. I contain such multitudes. Moon and sun, night and day."_

_He could see it now, out there, at the edges of the world, a light as gold as her hair, sneaking up beyond the horizon._

_"I held it back as best I could, but it hurts, Mickey," she sobbed. "I can't put it back alone and I can't hold on much longer."_

_The room shook around him. Everything was shaking. When he looked up, he saw the stars flare and die, heard insane, crippled laughter out of time and memory._

_"Why do you delay? It hurts and there isn't much time."_

_He tried to answer, but his feet went out from under him. Tumbling wildly, he saw her silent lips form the words 'Be back before--'_

*

Mickey woke up to find himself still shaking, less because of dreamquakes and more because one of the demon things -- what had Micah called them?   
Bat-monks. One of the bat-monks was standing over him, shaking his shoulders.

"You must wake," it insisted. "It is imperative that you attend her most-gorgeous-and-soft-ness at her most earliest of conveniences."

Mickey shoved weakly at him. "Should've thought of that before you knocked me out."

"Yes, yes, yes," it snapped, grabbed fistfuls of his jacket, and yanked him onto this feet with surprising strength.

Mickey tried not to throw up as the room spun. "All right! Blimey! I'd tell you to keep you hair on if you had any."

"I have lots of hair," it complained. Mickey stared. It sighed, reaching for its robes. "Must I show you?"

"I'll take you word for it," Mickey said quickly. "Lead on, then."

It sniffed, but did, keeping one hand locked on his jacket to drag him every time Mickey tried to slow down to get a better look of the place. It seemed kind of familiar, not as if he'd been there before but more like he'd been places like it. The ceiling was high and arched, the space wide if cut through with support pillars, skirted with benches. Tall windows lined the sides, though so criss-crossed with metal that they gave no real light or view of the outside.

To make up for it, someone had brought in a warehouse full of candelabras. Filled and lit, they sketched a path up to and around a raised dais on which an equally large, impressively gothic, ridiculously foam-filled bath tub was now resting.

A slim arm extended from the bubbles and graceful, red-nailed fingers clicked imperiously. "Loofah!"

"Do you not tremble before her cream-skinned magnificence?"

"I was expecting more tentacles," Mickey admitted.

"She is a god!"

"Yeah?" Mickey shrugged. "I've snogged the Queen of France."

There was a slight pause, and then a woman rose from the bubbles to peer at him, a quizzical smile on her face. For a moment, she was indeed gorgeous, and Mickey found himself smiling back automatically -- he'd always had a thing for blonds -- but then something in her face changed. It was as if, just for a moment, her skull flexed; like another face behind her own, pushing forward and pulling back.

"You," she said, "are not a loofah."

"It's a common mistake," Mickey said, for something to say.

Her features shifted again. Sores bloomed and faded on her skin as she pulled herself from the bath. A wave of perfume hit him, all sickly sweet and over-flowery, with something else underneath, something old and rotten, metallic and mutated. His skin crawled. It was like being back on Crucible.

The DonnaDavros, Mickey thought suddenly, and had to fight down both a wave of nausea and the sudden urge to laugh hysterically.

"He is the one, most Glory of glories," announced a bat-monk snivellingly.

She clapped in delight, staring at Mickey expectantly. "Where is it?"

"Your clothes?"

"No, meatsack." She waved, annoyed, at the minions. They scurried forward to help her clamber out of the bath, brining towels and wheeling out racks of clothes. "Must I monologue? It's so tedious."

"Your voice is as lovely as the flowers in spring," a minion simpered. "It trills as the most musical of-"

Glory backhanded it casually; the body, head crushed by the impact, slid wetly down the far wall.

"Once upon a time," Glory sighed, "there was a key, a not-so-merry chase, and such a bleeding as you ever did see. It was epic-- legendary! The lights crackled and the walls fell and all the worlds crushed into one and--"

"What, you did this?" Mickey interrupted. "The crap the world is now, that was you?"

From behind her curtain of towels, Glory eyed him, features shifting back and forth. "Are you outraged or mocking?"

Mickey just stared in disbelief.

"Yes, it was me! Glory!" She stamped petulantly, making Mickey and the minions stagger and dust rain down from the roof. "Who else? Who else in this pathetic little backwater has even half my divinity?"

A minion opened its mouth.

"Rhetorical!" Glory snapped. The minions scurried away with the towels, somehow leaving her in a short, slinky, red dress. "I put the key in the lock. I turned it! And what happened? Bupkiss!"

Mickey gaped. "Billions of people died!"

"Yes, that's all very sad, but what about my pain, huh? What about me?" She sobbed pathetically. "My full power should have returned in a blinding flash! I should be laying waste to countless worlds, not trapped in this, this rotting, putrefying, mortal flesh."

Head falling back, she bellowed her rage to the uncaring vaults.

"I'm! Still! Stuck!"

Her head dropped back, and she staggered forward, clutching at the bath from support. The cast iron buckled like paper under her hands as she panted for breath.

"I really miss my big gun," Mickey said. Glory stared at him. "That was out loud, wasn't it?"

A slow smile crawled across her face. Something rippled beneath the dress. It didn't fit her properly at all, now too loose, now pulled tight.

"But see, I have it now. I know what I need. A key for a key!" She pressed her hands together like a prayer, fingertips against her grinning lips; she came away from the bath with a little dancing skip. "I can feel it, little wormy squirming away in this haystack, just waiting for me to twist, to crack it open and let it all out. Can't you hear it? That endless, stupid singing! Not even the decency to scream and scream and scream and--"

She staggered suddenly, drunkenly, like her legs couldn't decide what length they were. Flailing, she caught the wall for balance, knocking candelabras over. There were muffled cries and, squinting, Mickey made out people, at least a dozen people, of all ages, gagged and chained against the back wall. Horrible hacking coughs drew his attention back to Glory as she jerked and gasped and choked, blood and phlegm spattering the stones.

Mickey started to back away, but one of the bat-monks appeared at his shoulder, holding him still. Others leaped to attend Glory, pulling her to the chain of prisoners. She twitched, shook like a grand mal seizure, hands smacking at her clothes. They caught her wrists and drew her fingers up to one of the prisoner's heads. The man screamed behind his gag, shaking his head until one of the bat-monks held it still. Glory's fingers were pushed in and Mickey half expected the man's skull to just cave -- except somehow her fingers passed right into him, as if he was as insubstantial as Hogwarts wall-gate.

Light blazed, rippling out of the man and into Glory's hands and she screamed too. When the light snapped off, so did the noise. The prisoner slumped in his chains, drool spilling around the gag, eyes open but nothing behind him. Glory fell back silently, chest heaving, only the bat-monks stopping her collapsing to the floor. Mickey counted a breath, five, ten, fifteen before she stirred, stretching cat-like and smirking at him in a superior fashion.

"I know what I need," Glory said. "It's all over you, you know: the detritus of dimensional travel. You're so unclean."

She pushed her way off the bat-monks and came stalking towards him.

"And I know your Torchwood, with its sticky little fingers getting in everywhere, always prying at the cracks and half-sealed rifts. I've seen your little stores; sucked them right out of a dozen minds, one by one by. One."

They were close enough that he should have been able to feel her breath. There was nothing but the stench.

"You should be dead," Mickey said without thinking, with absolute surety.

"Ben should be dead," Glory corrected. "He went and got himself infected. Typical, typical, typical. Nasty little thing: clever, for a bug. Chattering away in my skull, trying to make me do things. But it won't bother me long. Just give me what I want. You have it, I know. I can feel it."

"Yeah," Mickey agreed. "You said. Thing is? I have no idea what the fuck you--"

He didn't register the grab, only the heavy smack as he crashed into the bath and bounced off. Warm soapy water sloshed down over him; he was still trying to shake his face clear when she grabbed him again, holding him effortlessly off his feet by his neck.

"Watch your language," she snapped. "There are ladies present."

Busy choking, Mickey couldn't reply, but Glory seemed to take his noises as one anyway. She dropped him and then promptly straddled him, taking his head between her hands.

"I have senses you can't even name," she said calmly. "I can taste the probabilities in the air. And I know -- I know! -- you have what I want, or you can lead me too it. Now, are you going to be nice? Mmm?"

She turned his head this way and that, wrenching Mickey's neck. He managed to bite off the shout of pain.

"Or," Glory continued, smiling with good humour, rapping Mickey's forehead with a knuckle, "do I have to suck the thoughts right out of those wobbly pink meats of yours?" She frowned, looking up at the bat-monks. "Human brains are pink, right?"

The bat-monks all looked at each other in confusion. As the silence lengthened and Glory grew steadily more annoyed-looking, they started nudging each other and making non-committal noises. Finally one stepped forward.

"Ah," he started.

A sudden loud barking drowned him out. Over Glory's shoulder, Mickey caught a glimpse of impossibly familiar gold.

"Speak English," Glory complained.

"That, uh, that wasn't me, your most excellent beautiness."

She frowned at him and then turned to look over her shoulder. "Awwww!" Dropping Mickey, she stood up, beaming. "It's a little mongrel!"

Jake barked again and then started growling, inching slowly towards them, tail down and teeth showing.

"And their dog too," Glory added, reaching back to heft the bath into the air and throw it.

Mickey yelled in dismay, but it wasn't aimed at Jake. It smashed into the far wall, drenching half the room and two figures that crackled and blinked into view, throwing themselves out of the way of the falling tub.

"Did you really think disillusionment would work on me? I mean, honestly!" Glory looked back at Mickey, sharing her laughter with him; in the next moment, she was clear across the room, lifting Micah and Rose up and slamming them into the wall. "And people think I'm the crazy one."

She sniffed at Micah, licked a squirming Rose, pulled a face and dropped them both.

"Disgusting." Glory spat. "Another little witch. Do you think she'll still be able to cast spells after I pull out her tongue?"

"Leave her alone," Mickey yelled, running forward and getting a bat-monk on his back for his trouble; the went down, rolling and struggling.

"No," said Glory slowly, appearing to actually consider this. "I don't think I will. Besides, I'd be doing them a--"

Rose's wand came out of nowhere, red light blasting towards Glory, but she just put a hand up and it bounced without harming her, ricocheting to blast a hole in the wall above Micah.

"Favour," Glory finished. "I mean, really," she asked Rose. "Was this the best plan you could come up with? Suicide by god?"

"It was my plan," said Micah.

Glory blinked, and then grinned, turning all her attention on him. "Oh, really? Well, aren't you the cutest thing!"

"Yes," Micah agreed, pushing himself to his feet. "I learned a lot in India."

"Not to be racist or anything, because I'm not human and frankly your entire species is less than ants to me, but if that's the sort of plans they're teaching in India, they really should--"

"A man called Claude once told me that not being seen is only part of it," Micah said over this, defiantly meeting her eyes.

Glory sighed. "What's the rest, then?"

"Learn from history, look before you leap, and always have a back-up plan."

"Back-up?" Glory pouted. "Don't tell me there are more of you? Come on then," she huffed. "What're their names?"

"Just one." Micah grinned as Rose's wand finished flicking. "It's Shanti."

And all the windows exploded inwards under the lurching, groaning weight of the Infected.


	6. Chapter 6

He'd heard about it from Molly first, talking together in the hospital while his dad and her whatever Matt was were looked after. Then there had been Mohinder and Monica; his mother, coming back sick and powerless, but going into the flames anyway, because, really, wasn't that what he did? Get people killed? Not the point now, though: the point now was the virus was more than a bug; it was a power that looked like a disease, that shifted and mutated as a disease did. A power with a drive, an intelligence, a name -- for a girl not dead, but transfigured into another kind of life entirely: Shanti.

"What sort of a plan is this?" Mickey complained as Micah skidded to a halt at his side, reaching down to pull him up. The bat-monk that had been on him had gone to aid Glory as she shrieked and giggled and smacked at the hordes of the infected.

"A rescue plan?" Micah offered blithely as Rose came up to them. "Come on!"

"We've got to get the others out," Rose contradicted, not slowing as she passed, heading for the chained prisoners Glory had been using as food, and there was something else Micah wasn't thinking about.

"Seriously," said Mickey, coming with them, "any plan that involves killer zombies is not a good plan."

"They're not zombies," Micah pointed out lamely. "Jake!"

"Help me," Rose called from where she was blasting the chains. "Can't you ask them to open?"

"It's too slow if they're not electronic," Micah said digging in his pockets and pulling out a screwdriver. Mickey, joining him, proved to be a dab hand with a lock-pick -- Micah had to remember to learn that -- and between the three of them they managed to get the prisoners released in less than a minute, sending them racing for the side door.

Even that short time was enough for Glory to throw off her rage and Infected both and appear, in a blur, between them and the exit. Still, she seemed worse for the wear. The shifts were happening more rapidly now, almost continuously, as if her body couldn't remember what size or shape it should be. Rot ran across her in green-black waves. Her mouth worked silently for a while before she could force out the word, "Filth!"

"Bath," said Rose.

The crumpled remains of the cast iron tub whipped across the room, smashing into Glory, driving her into the regrouping Infected.

"Run!" yelled Mickey, and Micah yelled "Jake!" again simultaneously; this time, the dog came bounding to meet them, leaving the bat-monk he'd be harrying cowering in the corner.

"Round," Rose gasped out, "there," absently firing spells blindly behind her.

They took the corner. Micah saw the door, marked "Private Exit: Staff Only". To his delight, it actually had a number pad, and he sprinted harder to reach it, slapping a hand against the buttons and pushing. The system complained but gave, and he shouldered the door open. Jake bounded out in front of him, and then Mickey was there, pushing him through; Rose too, slamming it behind her and then doing something complicated with her wand that made the door melt into the wall.

"Not that that'll stop her for long," Rose added, leaning against it for support, absently casting wordless drying spells on herself and Micah. "I think I near pulled my shoulder summoning that bath, and she threw it one handed! I wonder if she's part giant?"

Giants were apparently real too. Fun.

Jake was jumping up at Mickey, tail wagging nineteen to the dozen, but Micah knew they weren't even close to safe. He looked around, trying to see in the dim light, trying to find something to use. They were in -- huh. They were in a railway. Not just one track like before, but lots of them, with actual platforms and everything. Which meant he'd been heading right here all along, and wasn't that a fun thought?

"How did you find me?" Mickey asked.

"Micah has a thing," Rose said.

"A life-signs detector," Micah explained as they all started moving again, heading by silent agreement parallel to the tracks and away from the building. "Rose fixed it for me, and we followed it. You show up really well for some reason."

"Artron energy," Mickey said. Micah blinked at him. Mickey waved this off. "And you drove through the Infected to get them to follow you in?"

"I saw them earlier, while I was walking," Micah explained.

"Have I said how incredibly bad that idea was? Because it was a seriously, seriously bad idea."

"Um", said Rose and they looked around to find she'd gone off to the side and was looking at something. "I have a bad idea as well."

Micah glanced back at the station, but there was no sign of pursuit yet. He hurried to join Rose as Jake bounded ahead of them, to sniff at a crumpled wheel. It was a train engine, Micah realised, over on its side. He didn't recognise the design. The name "Silver Bullet" was stencilled on the side, though the engine itself was blue where the paint hadn't flecked off the rusty metal beneath, and basically box-shaped.

"You know how to drive," Rose was saying to Mickey, "and Micah does his machine thing, and I can get it up and--"

"And the tracks vanish a hundred yards down and we all crash to our deaths?" Mickey finished.

"I think it could work," Micah offered.

"Your plan involved zombies!" Mickey yelled, making Jake bark.

"You're not letting that go, are you?"

Rose cut in before Mickey could argue. "I said it was a bad--"

There was an explosion behind him. Something smashed up through the roof of the station and fell back before they could make it out, trailing smoke and fire. Thin screams reached them.

"Yeah, okay," said Mickey. "Train."

"Can you get it up?" Micah asked. "It's gotta be heavier than the bath."

"I can make it lighter first," Rose said, already waving her wand. "Get around the other side and push. I'll pull from here."

They worked quickly -- after Micah dragged Jake out from underfoot, anyway -- and got the engine up. Getting it positioned on the tracks proved harder, partly because of a broken axle, but mostly because the screams and bangs from the station were getting louder.

"What the hell is she doing in there?" Mickey muttered.

Micah was sure he didn't want to know. "Fix it, would you?"

"Reparo isn't a universal panacea," Rose snapped back. "It's like with your detecting thing. I have to know exactly what I'm doing or it'll merge wrong."

"Can't you know what you're doing quickly?" Micah asked.

Mickey dragged him away from Rose and pushed him up into the driver's compartment, which took up most of the rear two thirds of the boxcar. "Do your talking thing. Tell her what it needs."

Micah placed his hands against the dash and concentrated. The train's computers were sluggish but friendly. Despite a lack of a third rail, as far as Micah had seen, there seemed to be power coming into it from somewhere. It was half-blocked though, and he started shouting instructions to Rose, hoping his English was coming out intelligibly. It wasn't really right to say he talked to machines; it didn't feel like language, exactly, but more a sort of flow, a mutual information exchange that bordered on merging.

(When he'd rigged the election for Petrelli, it had actually taken him a long moment to find his real body again.)

Power thrummed through him and through the train. Lights came on all over the cab.

"You did it," Mickey called to Rose. "Now, just--"

The largest bang yet came and, with it, pieces of brick and mortar, raining down all around them. Jake yelped. Rose and Mickey both swore as Glory appeared in the hole now gaping in the station wall. Her eyes were black, her dress tattered, and she was covered in something like blood, dripping with it. There was no sign of the bat-monks, and Micah had a horrible thought that the one explained the other.

"Get in!" he yelled, reaching for Rose even as Mickey started darting from control to control, hitting and pulling things.

The train jerked around him, almost throwing him out, and then again the other way, letting him pull Rose on-board. With a deep, metallic groan, it began to edge forwards.

"Faster!" Rose cried, grabbing hold of a yapping Jake to keep him inside.

"I'm trying," Mickey snapped back.

Micah pushed past Rose, back up to the dash. Reaching through it for that odd power source, he begged it for any help it could give. The reply was so strong he could taste batteries; something crackled and an electric whine was all the warning before the train shot forward. Mickey, holding onto the controls, managed to keep his feet. The other three went sliding towards the rear of the cab, Rose's wand clattering to the floor and rolling out of view.

A wild grab caught a lever that snapped off in his hand, cold air suddenly blowing from vents overhead. He fell back against the controls, scrabbling for purchase, and a horn sounded, all but drowning out Rose's sudden scream. He turned as he hit the floor right at the back of the cab, and found himself face to face with an enraged Glory. His own scream got caught in his throat as she swiped at him, fingers just missing as the train pulled away again.

Rose grabbed him, pulling him back, and he went with her, scrambling on elbows and heels -- except somehow Glory was there again, there still, lunging with inhuman speed. Her hand closed around his ankle and this time Micah did cry out, in pain, disgust and fear. He started sliding back, despite Rose's death-grip, and yelped again, kicking wildly at Glory's mad grin but hitting nothing.

Jake's teeth closed on Glory's wrist.

Her agonised scream wasn't anywhere near as horrific as the wet snapping as Jake twisted his jaws and ripped Glory's hand clean off. She fell back, sobbing and wailing, caught a foot in the rail and went tumbling, crashing to the ground and rolling, over and over. In seconds she was barely a dot on the horizon. Jake spat the hand out, gagging. Micah scrambled backwards, away from it, ending up being yanked into Rose's arms for a tight hug.

"What the fu--" Mickey started, and then Rose screamed; something hit Micah hard in the back; Rose batted at him; he rolled; something scuttled -- the hand, the freaking hand was moving, all by itself it was moving, that broken handle in its fingers, coming back at him again, stabbing, cutting right through his jacket before Rose could get it off him, kicking it away, and again, so it flew out into the open air and fell away.

There was a long stunned silence and then, to his complete embarrassment, Micah burst into tears.

*

There was a hole in his backpack where the broken lever had pierced through, and a dent in his father's medal of honour. He rubbed at it with his thumbs, as if he could just smooth it out.

"Thanks, dad," he whispered, holding it tight.

*

"It's getting lighter," Mickey said.

Micah looking up, frowned. "It's dark as anything."

"Nah." Mickey nodded forward, which was more sort of sideways, and who designed a train cab you couldn't see directly out of? Okay, the open sides and back made leaning out to check easy, but hardly safe. What sort of alternate world had it come from? How was it picking up power, and from what, and was there some way to do the same? Micah couldn't begin to explain how much he seriously missed constant, working electricity. Not to mention running water.

Not having people whose hands came alive when you cut them off and who could run as fast as a damn train was right up there too.

"Micah," repeated Mickey, and Micah blinked at him. "Yeah, you went away for a second there. Maybe you should sleep."

Rose was. She'd said something about having had a bajillion cousins and learning to be able to sleep anywhere, plonked herself down in a chair, and promptly drifted off. Jake had squeezed in next to her and done the same.

"I'm good," Micah said, shaking his head. He leaned out a little, carefully, to look. It was brighter ahead, the sky lightening along the horizon. When he glanced back, though, the darkness was still thick and deep, swallowing even the crazy-paving stars. Looking forward was better, so he did again, and frowned. "Hey, I think there's something up ahead."

Mickey leaned out around him to look and Micah frowned, because, come on, and then had a better idea and went to talk to the train again. It was confused for a moment, and then light shimmered down in front of the controls, becoming a projected virtual windscreen, with complimentary HUD. Micah whistled appreciatively.

"Man, what is it?" Mickey asked, trying to poke the screen. His fingers went right through it, sending little ripples racing outwards through the dark silhouette ahead.

Dark was the wrong word, though, Micah thought. It wasn't that it was dark, it was that you couldn't see it clearly behind its lights. The structure was tall, a vaguely conical spire in a jagged, pointy, metallic Christmas tree sort of way but -- and maybe it was just because they were rushing towards it through the dark at high speed but -- it wouldn't stay still. Pieces that at first seemed near were suddenly far away, while large, distant outcroppings were really tiny and close. It was like it was hiding in plain sight.

"Maybe we should wake Rose," Mickey said.

"Maybe you should slow down," Micah returned.

There was a slight pause and then Rose said, without opening her eyes, "You do know how to slow down, I take it?"

"Um," Mickey said, which wasn't reassuring at all.

"I can just ask the train," Micah said, and reached out to do so. The train assured him it was quite happy going this fast, thank you, and it could even go a bit faster if they wanted. "Um."

Rose swore, bouncing to her feet, startling Jake. She grabbed at herself and then looked panicked. "My wand!"

"You dropped it earlier," Micah remembered. "It must have rolled--"

They both went down on their knees, searching for it.

"I think I can see it," Rose said, pressed against a control cabinet. "Under there -- you're smaller; can you reach?"

"Here, let me try," Micah said, squeezing in next to her, pushing Jake aside when he tried to help.

"I don't think we need to worry about our speed," Mickey said in a strangled sort of way.

"Why not?" asked Rose absently, while Micah wriggled his arm into the tiny gap, just managing to get her wand with his fingers tips.

"Because we're running out of track," Mickey said.

Micah jerked Rose's wand out so fast he tore his sleeve open from elbow to wrist.

"You really should take better care of your clothes," Rose said distantly, and Micah was too busy gaping at the screen and the way the rails just stopped to gape at her.

"We'll have to jump," Mickey said. "We can -- I dunno, roll with it or--"

"We're going too fast for that," Micah said. "Rose, can't you magic us out or--"

"I'd splinch us across half a mile of tracks," Rose snapped.

"Wait, wait, you can make us lighter," Mickey said. "Like with the train -- we can float down."

"Momentum is conserved," Rose said. "Negating mass might reduce our downwards acceleration but our forward velocity would be--"

"--decreased by air-resistance," Micah interrupted, raising his voice as the rumbling of the track got louder and the train horn started blaring cheerfully.

"We'll still hit the--"

"But not as bad!" Mickey yelled back. "We're out of track! Do it!"

 

"Fine!" Rose said, flicking her wand at all of them. It felt like being hit by a wave of water, like something was pushing Micah up and back, somehow buoyant in air. Jake started whining, tail down. "This is insane!"

"It is my turn!" Mickey grinned. "Jump!"

They lunged. Everything went white.

*

Micah blinked.

"Um." He frowned, looking around. There were strings of fairy-lights, hanging baskets filled with greenery, dark stone pillars and arches. light stones underfoot. His clothes were ripped, but no more than earlier, and his back-pack, also on its last threads, was still on his shoulders. He didn't feel dead, just a little light still. "What just happened?"

"Felt like a port-key," Rose said.

"Or a transmat," Mickey said, crouching to soothe a startled Jake. "Are we in a church? It feels church-y."

It did; there was a kind of expectant hush to the place, like a choir had just finished and a sermon was about to begin. In fact, if Micah really concentrated, he could swear he could still hear the echoes of a song.

 

"I think we're in the tower," Rose said.

They moved to join her at the small wall. The sky was growing brighter to the east. To the west, the sky was thick and dark. Below them, they could see train tracks leading away into the distance. A cold breeze whipped across them, carrying the stench of decay, and they flinched as one, moving back.

"This seems weirdly familiar," Mickey muttered.

Micah barely heard him. There was definitely a song. It was quiet, less a sound and more a vibration in the stones around him, but it was there. It seemed to be coming from somewhere both above and below them. He followed it as best he could, walking this way and that until it was loudest, and there was an oddly shaped corner and suddenly a twisting, rising spiral staircase in front of him.

"Up," he said to himself and started climbing. Jake clambered up after him, then beside, then bounded up. The music, the song was getting louder. As he took the first turn, jumping up two and three steps at a time, he only barely noticed Mickey and Rose were following too.

In defiance of architecture, the stair somehow opened out into a large, round room, with a half-dozen big circular windows in the walls and a complicated stained glass ceiling. A second staircase led down on the opposite side, though Micah hadn't seen it coming up -- but then there had been only the night sky above him until he'd come level with this floor, so that wasn't that surprising.

In the centre of the room, there was a -- a well, Micah decided. It was like an old stone well, from a fairy story, coming up to the middle of his chest. Rippling, spiralling, watery light shone faintly up in a column from the middle. When he touched the stones, they seemed to melt under his fingers, revealing complicated racks of buttons, knobs and levers. They played notes in his head like the world's most complicated piano.

When he looked up, it was to find that Mickey, Jake and Rose had all been drawn to windows.

"I've seen this," Rose was saying. "In my dreams. I've seen this view. Scorpius was there--" She waved vaguely back at the well, still looking out. "--and I was here and-- Oh! It's dawn."

The sun, just clearing the horizon, was framed in the window. It gleamed, bright and cold, and Micah felt suffused with gold, soft and warm as honey. The song rose triumphantly.

"It's singing," he said. "Can't you hear it? It's singing like -- like -- I don't know!" He laughed, grinning at them. "I don't know what!"

"I know what it is," Mickey said. "She's a TARDIS."


	7. Chapter 7

There was a long pause. Finally, Rose said, "Who's a what?"

"This," Mickey explain, waving a hand around. "The whole tower thing. It's a -- it's a sort of time-machine and spaceship in one. Time and Relative Dimension in Space, see?"

"Seriously?" Micah asked, eyes huge with wonder.

Mickey nodded. "I used to know a guy who had one."

"Was he Japanese?"

"What? No. He was -- he called himself a Time Lord. He was an alien."

"Oh," said Micah, and went back to caressing the control well in a disturbingly get-a-room way that Mickey was definitely not thinking about.

"So it's like ... a time-turner and a port-key in one?" Rose asked.

"No." Mickey considered. "Well, actually, yeah, it is a bit. They're usually bigger on the inside than the outside because of, uh--"

"Dimensional transcendentalism!" Rose clapped her hands together. Jake sat up, giving her a quizzical look. "Of course!"

"Right," Mickey said, eyeing her. "That."

"It's obvious that the interior dimensions of the craft must lie perpendicular to all dimensions outside, which means they'd have to be inherently non-regular to--" She blinked, eyes going wide. "It's inside out!"

"Right," Mickey repeated.

"No, no!" Rose's hands danced in the air. "Don't you get it? This, this TARDIS! This is what happened -- it's why everything went wrong, why all the dimensions got twisted together!"

"So we can untwist them," Micah said.

Rose started off on a long-winded explanation involving arithmancy that Mickey let go in one ear at out the other. He was thinking about something Martha had told him, about a chameleon arc and how you could hide one person inside another, and about Glory, shifting like a regeneration gone wrong. Could she have been a Time Lord? Really?

He shuddered, seriously hoping not.

Both Rose and Micah were looking at him. "What?"

"It's broken," Micah said, pointing to a display now being projected over the central pool. Gallifreyan numerals, circles in circles, spun across a display, the TARDIS buried like a barbed spear-tip in the guts of the universe.

"So we fix it," Mickey said. They continued to stare. "Look, I'm more of the idea guy, okay. You've got all the magic mojo, Rose, and Mecha here is the Technomaster--"

"Micah."

"That's what I said."

"No, you--" Rose frowned, and then waved this off. "I told you before; Reparo is limited by--"

"She can tell us herself," Micah said. "I mean, can't you hear it? Neither of you? She's singing."

Mickey found that, if he really concentrated, remembering the way the Doctor's TARDIS had whispered inside his head, turning everything into English, he could hear something. It was soft, distant, barely there; just a hint of something musical, of a sad request to be noticed, for someone to care.

"Don't worry," Mickey said to it, to them all. "We can fix her. All of us, together; we can fix everything."

*

It wasn't that it proved harder than expected. It was more that it proved impossible.

Mickey had a good working knowledge of engines and practice explaining Muggle things to wizards, Micah did his best to translate things from Machine to English, and Rose was both smart, ready to learn, and willing to admit mistakes. Even Jake tried to help out, dragging tools over from where they dropped on request into a waiting hopper; they'd all got quite adept at dodging doggy slobber. Still, in the end, it seemed futile.

"It's like it's missing its spark plugs," Micah explained. "We've got an engine, and fuel, even, which actually appears to be coming from a spike that's still in another universe entirely, which, I mean--"

"'Bloody hell'?" Mickey offered, grinning when Rose reached out absently to smack him.

"Yeah," Micah said, flashing a grin. "But there's nothing to ignite it. I don't know what's missing."

Mickey frowned, remembering an Earth full of Zeppelins, and the Doctor breathing life into a tiny power-cell -- but it's not like, he reminded himself. She's listing across dimensions, like a, a beached whale or. Or something less insulting. She just needs--

'When you travel in time in the TARDIS,' Rose Tyler had said, back then, facing down the Daleks in Torchwood tower, 'you soak up all this background radiation.'

"Oh, yes," Mickey crowed. "Quick! Where's your life-signs detector thing?"

Micah blinked at him and then half shrugged, and pointed to his back-pack, which he'd taken off for the first time in practically forever.

Mickey jumped on it, pulling things out. He held up the blue shell thing. "This?"

"No, the other one," Micah corrected. "I think that's some kind of alien synthesizer. I took it from the van," he added, a little guilty.

"Mi casa es su alien tech," Mickey said, waving this off. He found the detector, flicking it on, trying to clean the scratched screen of with his sleeve.

"We do have cloths," Rose said primly as she stood, admiring her wiring work. "You know, I'm getting quite good at this. What are you doing?"

"Hah!" Mickey showed them both the flashing screen. "That's me, that is. Steeped in Artron energy and void-stuff and who knows what else!"

"You're radioactive?" Micah asked dubiously.

 

"Yes! Well, no-- yes-- Look, it's harmless," as far as he knew, "but it's your spark!"

Rose frowned at the display. "You want us to plug--" She glanced at Micah to check the word was right, and he nodded. "You want us to plug you in to the time-key--"

"Time rotor," Mickey supplied.

"Right." Rose nodded. "No."

"Yes?" Mickey offered.

"I know about batteries, you know," Rose said. "I've been in Grandad Arthur's shed. Micah was starting to look worried too, now. "They get sucked dry."

"It's fine," Mickey insisted. "I once accidentally activated a temporal prison filled with genocidal pepper-pots and I was fine afterwards. Well, I ended stuck in a parallel world for a bit, but that was unrelated. Sort of."

They were both staring at him.

"It'll be fine, I promise!" Mickey insisted. "Go on, Micah; ask her. I'm right, aren't I?" Micah pressed a hand against the well, eyes closing; after a moment, he nodded. "I'm right."

"Fine," Rose sighed. "Recklessness in the face of adversity is practically a family trait anyway."

"Come on, then," Mickey said. "Let's build this thing."

"You know this is probably going to take hours, if not days, right?" Micah asked.

Mickey sighed. "Man, you know what I miss? The sonic screwdriver."

"'Sonic'," Micah repeated dubiously as he flicked a switch. Static blasted loudly, making them all wince and setting Jake off barking. Micah slapped it off again. "Found the speaker system, sorry. You have to be careful what you're thinking when you press stuff."

Jake kept on barking, jittering from paw to paw.

"It's okay," Micah called. "See? All quiet."

"Yeah," Mickey said. "Hush up! Jake!"

"Wait," said Rose, "he's not barking at the speakers; he's--"

With an almighty crash, the far window was ripped clean out, parts of the wall too, stones and wires and pipes and broken metal raining down on either side of the sickly pale, black veined, bulging eyed form of Glory.

"I," she forced out of the ruin of her mouth, in horrible, wet, distorted syllables, "Want. My. KEY!"

*

Afterwards, Mickey couldn't work out what exactly happened next, only that they all moved, and then they were all on the ground, he had a mouthful of blood, and Jake was whimpering where he hung from Glory's hand. He spat, trying to speak, Micah crying "Jake!" and Rose "Don't do that!"

"I will do that. I want--" Hacking coughs overtook her, and Glory doubled over, throwing Jake away. He hit the wall and slid silently down it to rest, motionless in the rubble.

Mickey tried to move, and Glory was suddenly right there in his face, black, viscous liquid oozing from her mouth. When she grabbed him, he realised that a small, stubby hand was growing from the stump of her torn wrist. Somehow, that was worse than the rest.

"I know you have it," she forced out. "Why are you hiding--"

"Leave him alone and I'll tell you where it is," Micah said.

They both turned to look at him, standing resolutely at the well. Mickey couldn't help noticing that Rose was carefully edging away. Not a bad idea. The further apart they were, the harder it would be for Glory to target all of them. Probably. Except for that super-speed thing. Shit.

"Where?" Glory asked, tossing Mickey away as easily as she had Jake. His head hit something and he lost the next bit of conversation to stabbing pain and white flashing lights.

Micah was saying, "--my pack. I can get it."

"No." Glory staggered towards it and, for the weirdest moment, Mickey thought he could see too of them, half-overlaid, a blackened, rotting husk and a beautiful, almost transparent woman. When she ripped Micah's backpack open, there was only one again; she came back up, she had the blue shell thing in her hand. "This?"

"It's a musical key," Micah insisted. "Like a code. You just plug and play. Here." He patted the well.

Glory slunk suspiciously forward. She was leaving bloody footprints behind now, like she was using herself up, keeping the embers burning only by sheer force of will.

"You do it," she said.

"Okay," said Micah agreeably, holding out a hand.

She didn't hand the shell over. "Trickery!"

"No," was all Micah managed before he was being sent flying.

"Mine!" Glory roared with sudden strength, slamming the shell into the console and dragging her good hand across it and--

(A little more sonic, Mickey thought in sudden understanding, throwing himself down and clapping his hands to his ears.)

\-- an apocalyptic cacophony of chords boomed out of the speakers, shattering all the windows, sending Mickey sliding back into the wall as it rose, louder and louder and impossibly louder, until he could no longer hear it, only feel it crushing him, an ocean's depth of excruciating sound.

Perhaps Glory screamed. It was impossible to tell. Mickey could see her being forced back -- not just back, but out, the shape of her trailing around her body, moving out of sync -- and then Rose was there, wrapping him in sweet silence.

"Help Micah," she said, and turned towards Glory, raising her wand like a whip. When it came down, Glory jerked back another few steps as if struck, then again and again.

Mickey wanted to watch, but Micah was there, pulling at him, and he went, both of them to the well.

"Put your hands in here," Micah ordered him, and Mickey did, only thinking to question it when metal claws closed around them. "No time! Rose!"

Still Rose was attacking, strike after strike, but each hit was having less and less effect. Pushed back to the smashed out window, Glory was holding her line -- and now she started deflecting the blows, sending them crackling back, forcing Rose to dodge this way and that.

Mickey tried to tug his hands free to go to help, but the claws got tighter and then there was a sharp, tugging sensation and sudden fire welled up inside him. Micah flashed him an apologetic look at his yell, but the boy's hands didn't stop dancing across the controls.

"Rose," he yelled again.

"I'm trying," Rose yelled back.

"Artron extraction imminent," Micah announced.

Mickey stared at him, wide-eyed. "I thought it would take hours!"

"Hours safely," Micah said. "Sorry." He slammed another lever down.

Gold light burst up through Mickey's skin, curled for a moment, and then was sucked into the well. He bit his lip against the pain, looking away in time to see Glory finally clip Rose with a returning strike. As Rose went down, firing blindly, Glory's gaze swung towards an oblivious Micah. Mickey tried to form a warning, but when his mouth opened, only glowing smoke escaped. Glory took a step forward.

A barking blur of red-smeared gold smashed into her.

They went backwards together, Glory and Jake, backwards and out through the ruined window, back and out and down. The wind caught them, ripped them apart. Glory fell, striking outcropping after outcropping all the way down the tower, breaking on each one. The thing that hit the ground, splashing and exploding in fountains of foul muck, was unrecognisable as ever being anything, let alone human.

Blond spikes rippling in the breeze, tail wagging, Jake fell too -- not down, but up, floating happily in the grip of Rose's last second Summoning. He landed gently in her arms, managing to lift his head enough to lick her chin, before slumping, exhausted.

"Batteries to full," Micah yelled, ripping the sound shell free and tossing it away. "Ignition sequence in five--"

The cloister bell tolled, loud and deep. Mickey screamed as the light poured out of him.

"Three," he heard, and "Two" and the boom of the bell and the still lingering echoes of the shell and the song around them, rising in joy, and that old, familiar sound, the wheezing and grinding of eternity. Micah yelled "One!" The entire tower wrenched itself around them, spinning and folding and collapsing in on itself, rotating around them, rotating them with it, moving together and apart in impossible directions as it unhooked itself from the workings of space-time, retreating and rotating until with the final "Zero!" they'd rotated right out of reality itself.

Somewhere, Mickey could hear laughter, and he added his own to it as everything burned away gold.


	8. Chapter 8

_One by one, time-lines untangle; realities release and slip apart. And so, here, under the Zeppelins, Rose Tyler stands hand in hand with a newborn man and thinks of an old friend; here a young girl looks wistfully at a phone and in nine wonders at books and books of maps; here, Hugo Weasley wakes from confused dreams and thinks, both fondly and sadly, of a travelling sister and a world that now never was. Though there are traces of my passing, though the wounds of time leave scars never to be entirely erased, still: ours are as the footprints of ghosts; we tread lightly across the universe, my companions and I._

"You did it," said Rose, smiling up at them from where she was sat on the newly carpeted floor, carefully stroking Jake. He huffed softly, one leg kicking in his sleep.

"We did it," said Mickey. "You were brilliant, Rose. And way to go Micah!"

"I think I blew about a thousand settings making you connect like that," Micah said, a little sheepishly. "I'm going to have to fix lots of stuff if we're going to keep her running."

"Are we?" Rose asked.

"It's not like we can go back to where we were," Mickey said.

"We could. I mean, not exactly, but there are sort of ... temporal trails, I guess. You can see where all the bits of the Earth came from, and where they went back to. I think we could visit them, so long as we left an anchor here in the, um--"

"The time vortex," Mickey supplied.

"Right, that." Micah nodded.

"At least I didn't have to Reparo the windows," Rose said.

The damage from the fight was all gone. The walls and glass had been regenerated in that first surge of power. Images of different places, different planets, different times, showed through each of the windows. View-screens onto everything.

"So what do we do now?" Rose asked. "A shower, some food and some sleep would be good, and I'd love to properly catalogue this whole -- what was it? TARDIS?" She smiled at the cheerful answering note from the console well. "But what happens after that? What do you do with a space-time machine?"

"Whatever you want," Mickey said. "The sky's the limit. In fact, it isn't; that's the point. How about it, Micah? Where do you want to go today?"

"Jake needs a vet," Micah said. He frowned down at himself. "And I could use some new clothes?"

"We all will," Rose pointed out. "Micah's backpack is all we brought with us."

"Right then," said Mickey. He reached for the controls and blinked to find Micah and Rose both there at his shoulders. "All together then."

"Are you sure you know how to steer her?" Rose asked.

"Of course!" Mickey grinned at them. "Me? I can drive anything." With a hearty cry of "Allons-y!" he threw a lever.

_And so we go on, the witch, the defender, the technopath, and the timeship-girl; we go on, slip-sliding away through the vortex and out, dancing, into the hundred, the thousand, the million lights of dawn. We go on._


End file.
